_{© Nancy Duxbury/CES}

The Centre for Social Studies (CES) of the University of Coimbra’s application for the project 'IN SITU - Local innovation of cultural and creative industries in non-urban areas', was approved with funding by the European Commission under the Horizon Europe Programme.

Despite the increased visibility and importance of cultural and creative industries (CCIs) based in non-urban areas of the European Union (EU) in the last decade, there is a noticeable lack of research and policy attention to their specific needs, characteristics and potential. In this sense, IN SITU presents itself as an opportunity to study the installed potential of competitiveness and innovation in this area, and to contribute to increase the capacity of CCIs to act as drivers of innovation, competitiveness and sustainability in the non-urban contexts where they are located.

IN SITU will seek to provide in-depth knowledge on the effects, direct and indirect, of cross-sectoral connections, innovative strategies and systems and needs of CCIs' practitioners in non-urban areas, trying to complement it with proposals for cultural and innovation policies and frameworks that help to contextualize and enable this work.

The project, which started on July 1st, and will run over the next four years, has received a total funding of 4 million euros, whose touchstone is the interconnection of research and practical applications, which will combine research with experimental actions, through the IN SITU Labs, hubs of projects in 6 European non-urban regions, located in Portugal, Ireland, Iceland, Finland, Latvia and Croatia.

The consortium coordinated by CES, and supported by an International Scientific Council, brings together 13 institutional partners in 12 countries: the Centre for Social Studies (CES) of the University of Coimbra (coordinator); National University of Ireland - Galway (Ireland); European Network of Cultural Centres (Belgium); Utrecht University (Netherlands); National Institute of Agriculture, Food and Environment (France); MONDRAGON Innovation & Knowledge (Spain); Kultura Nova Foundation (Croatia); University of the Azores (Portugal); University of Turku (Finland); Latvian Academy of Culture (Latvia); Bifröst University (Iceland); National Academy of Theatre and Film Arts "Kr. Sarafov" (Bulgaria); and the University of Hildesheim (Germany).

The CES multidisciplinary research team is coordinated by Nancy Duxbury and includes Antonieta Reis Leite, Cláudia Pato de Carvalho, Hugo Pinto, Lorena Sancho Querol, Paula Abreu and Sílvia Ferreira.